Play Him Off, Waylon: Randy Moss, Good Ol' Boy

While people pile on Randy, just remember that his uncouth behavior has always been in his Appalachian blood, and has always been part of his charm.

One of my favorite commercials ever...

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Philly.com: Former "Viking" Jon Runyan Running for Congress

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In Addressing McNabb Trade, Former Eagle Takes Shot at the Ol' Gunslinger

Since announcing his candidacy for US Congress, former All Pro lineman Jon Runyan is asked as many football questions by reporters as political ones.

With the recent Donovan McNabb trade, however, there was finally something good (football-wise) to ask the former Eagle about.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, now, what's the story about Donovan McNabb? You played with him with the Eagles. Why the Redskins? What's that going to do for the Redskins and what's that going to do to the Eagles?

RUNYAN: Well, I think the Eagles were in a unique situation where they actually had three starting quarterbacks on the roster, so they were able to shop, you know, each one individually, and it ultimately ended up being Donovan going to Washington, which surprised a lot of people around here, especially the fact that they're playing in the division twice a year. So it's going to be an interesting thing. I mean, they have traditionally in Washington, they have a great defense. You know, if they can come out and put together some -- put -- you know, put together some scoring drives and put points on the board, they're a very formidable team here in the NFC East.

VAN SUSTEREN: You know, it's a little like having Donovan McNabb go from the Eagles to the Redskins because it's the same -- they're going to play against each other -- it's a little bit like Brett Favre going from the Packers to the Vikings. You know, they're both incredible rivalries, and now they've -- they've lost -- they've now lost or given away or however you want to describe it, their quarterbacks.

RUNYAN: Yes, but minus the "I want to play, I want to retire, I want to play, I want to retire" fiasco.

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Mother Hen Brad Childress on Farve Clucking with the Vikes

WISN: Vikings coach Brad Childress said he is comfortable with Brett Favre waiting as long as he did last year to decide if he will play for Minnesota this season.

"Well, as a coach, you're a mother hen."

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Cadillac Mescallade: A Dream Realized

A sports dream was realized on Sunday evening when the New Orleans Saints clinched a spot in their first ever Super Bowl with an overtime victory over the Minnesota Vikings. The resiliency of an area ravaged not long ago by Hurricane Katrina finally cemented in the sports world with a legitimate victory. A true trophy to go along with all the moral and inspirational victories that have been piled up in recent years, and it's wonderful. Of all my teams, including the Knicks and the Mets, it was the Saints that seemed forever doomed to achieve something in the postseason. This year started off tremendously with a 13-0 beginning, but then three straight losses prior to the playoffs had the "Who Dat" nation a bit nervous.

After dispatching of the Arizona Cardinals, the Saints were in a spot similar to 2006, only this time, they won that NFC Title game and the impossible has been realized. Often cited as the worst team of all time in the NFL the Saints have gotten out of the proverbial cellar. They are no longer part of the trivia question of teams that have never been to a Super Bowl or those that never hosted an NFC Championship Game.

Anyone that has rooted for a team through thick and thin can truly appreciate what it is when a team finally gets over a huge hurdle. I know this isn't a Super Bowl Championship but for those that have rooted for teams that were mired in years of losing, it's all the more enjoyable. Nothing against what franchises like the Cowboys and Yankees have done, but there is just something extra special about getting to the promised land when it's been anything but your birthright.

There have been wonderful highs and great memories of Saints football over the last 15 years that I think of fondly. From a Jim Everett jersey on Christmas morning to the excitement of Ricky Williams on draft day, Mario Bates and Michael Haynes to the toppling of the then champion Rams and the fumble recovery of Brian Milne, the mobility of Aaron Brooks, the consistency of Joe Horn, and powering runs of Deuce McAllister. Reggie Bush's somersault TD against the Bears and Brees record setting 2008, all leading up to this past Sunday. Finally this New Orleans franchise and this city that's forever been waiting to have a hometown sporting event to compliment their endless party atmosphere has their day in the sun.

I'm routinely asked to explain my fanhood of the New Orleans Saints. In the lean years it was answering "why?" and in seasons like this, it's been fighting off "frontrunner" talk. Where did the Saints come from, living in the Northeast? It was a chance when teams were being decided to root for the underdog and for the team nobody cared about. The Jets, Giants, Bills, and Eagles were all spoken for among my friends, and the Saints were the equivalent of buying low, with the hopes of one day selling high.

Well, years removed from receiving that #17 jersey (which I still have), today we are offered the chance to sell very high, I think I'll hang tight, besides there is still some work to be done. Geaux Saints!

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Warren Moon: Never Give Up on Your Dream

In 2006, Warren Moon was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, becoming the first African-American quarterback to be honored in Canton.

I never viewed Moon as anything but a great quarterback, and certainly never looked at him as a "black quarterback." In fact, I wore #12 in my youth league quarterbacking days in honor of my favorite player Randall Cunningham. To me, a great player was a great player. But to Warren Moon, this racial distinction was ever apparent.

With that distinction came many personal, emotional hardships that I or most HHR readers can never fully grasp. And while he comments several times that he never wanted to be remembered as such (a "black" quarterback), he spends most of the 250 pages of his autobiography, Never Give Up on Your Dream, reminding readers that he is a black quarterback.

Literally, nearly every page makes mention of this.

Granted, Moon clearly uses the book as a therapeutic devise to get things off of his chest that he's held in for decades. Unfortunately, some of his arguments about his race contradict other things that he points out in the text.

For instance, Moon notes that despite his high school success, he was never actively recruited as a quarterback by a major D-1 program. In the same breath he notes that his senior year he stood a Flutie-esq 5'11", 165 pounds. Not many big-time recruiters are looking to fill their QB position with someone of that stature.

When finally getting a shot at the University of Washington, he noted that the offense catered to his strengths, moving the pocket, rolling out. He found a fit where the program was willing to change to meet Warren Moon's desires, rather than he himself changing to meet those of the programs he was looking to lead.

Moon rolled the dice, signed with the CFL out of college - a league whose wide-open field and spread offense favored Moon's skill set. While he signed north of the boarder, an NFL team could still have drafted his rights, albeit as a gamble. Moon expresses shock that this didn't happen. Of the fourteen QBs drafted in 1978, Moon noted "It stunned me that I wasn't included in that group somewhere...Although I knew I wasn't going to get drafted, it was still a major shock when my name wasn't called." This statement doesn't even make sense and tells me Moon is either being disengenuous with him memoir or realy has a warped sense of reality - he had just signed a 3-year deal with Edmonton.

Moon notes at the time of the draft the difficulty of being a black quarterback, that most bolt to the CFL and others become wide outs or d-backs. Yet, Doug Williams of HBC Grambling was the first quarterback selected that year.

Truth be told, like Tim Tebow today, it was Moon's ability and skill set that befuddled pro scouts and coaches, as much as his skin color. Neither Tebow nor Moon are/were viewed as "pro-style" quarterbacks.

When Moon finally signed the richest contract in history to land in Houston, the entire offense was adapted to him, incorporating 4 wide receivers and a spread set hardly seen anywhere in the NFL.

The first 200 pages of Never Give Up... are really a recap of Moon's career, with very little revealed. By the time Moon gets around to talking about his missteps - his failed first marriage, domestic abuse accusations, DUIs - they are brushed over in a manner that seems Moon, while saying he accepts responsibility, more paints the incidents as misunderstandings for which he was wrongly characterized.

This isn't to say that the combination of his race and position weren't accompanied by bias or predjudices, but I question Moon's motives, both now and in his playing days. While Moon was always viewed as a person of high character and class, always managing to say the right things as a player, perhaps this was a carefully-calculated approach to not rock the boat and for self-perserverance. With his legacy now secured with a bronze bust in Canton, he is more at liberty to speak his mind on social issues still relevant in the League than he was prior to his enshrinement.

I feel this book was more written for Warren Moon himself, rather than the football fan/reader.

Super Bowl title or no Super Bowl title, Warren Moon was one of the best quarterbacks of his or any era. Few will ever be able to comprehend the added scrutiny that being a black quarterback presents. But Moon doesn't do readers any justice by helping them to understand. Few examples can be viewed as anything other than the author's personal assumption and/or speculation. He could have really pounded home some tangible examples with additional testimony from others in the picture. But rather, Moon internalizes and focuses on #1.

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Brett Favre and the Pursuit of Happiness

Play As Long As You Want Favre.

While sure to rile up some folks, I really don't have a problem with Brett Favre coming back to play for the Minnesota Vikings or anyone else. Do I think it's a problem that Vikings Coach Brad Childress just slid his two current quarterbacks out of the way to make room for Favre after saying he wouldn't? Yes. Was it absolutely draining tht ESPN covers his every move in a potential comeback like a presidential campaign? Yes. But these aren't Favre's problems. I know there are a lot of reasons people have speculated as to why Favre is coming back. He wants to come back to get revenge on the Packers when the two meet up twice this season or maybe he is just looking at another payday. I'm sure those will all be nice parts of the package, getting some 25 million for two years and also a chance to take down the franchise that no longer wanted you have to be incentives, but I think at the end of the day he just wanted to play football again.

Photo: Elizabeth Flores/Star Tribune, via Associated Press

I am by no means a lifelong Favre fan but I can totally understand someone wanting to still do something they love even when others feel like it's time to move on. What has soured many folks on Favre is the back and forth on his retirement that has gone on for nearly the last decade. Perhaps he is like your friend at the diner who never knows what he wants and can't fully make up his decision until the waitress demands an order. Then after he gets the grilled cheese he knows he made a mistake. We all know people like that. It just so happens this isn't our friend, and these decisions aren't taking place at the diner. And yes I'm aware that playing professional football is more important than ordering food, but it feels like the same thought process for Favre. He seemed resolved finally to place his order of retirement, and in a rare move he was given a chance to order yet again, and this time he figured out what he really wanted deep down, to play.

Anyone who has seen the latest installation of the Rocky Balboa movies knows where Favre is coming from. As the "Rock" says, Favre probably still has some stuff left in the basement that he wants to get out. Just like in Rocky alot of people don't get why Favre is doing this. What does he have to prove? Why risk further injury? Why be greedy? Truthfully, it's not really about any of these things, at least I don't think. I'd like to think it's about a guy that just loves a sport and wants to keep playing it as long as possible. To anyone who has ever played three-on-three basketball until it gets dark out, or has thrown the football around until you can't see it anymore in the night sky, we have all had this feeling. The feeling to want to maximize as much time as you possibly can doing something you truly enjoy.

Unfortunately most fans now don't get to play or do the things they love as much anymore. They have jobs, families, committments, and sometimes bodies that can't do it anymore. Instead they are saturated with just a fan experience of highlights shows, fantasy stats for players, and bottom lines with repetitive updates about things like if a quarterback will once and for all comeback. Maybe that has made some of us cynical or jaded because we can't make decisions like Favre just did. We can't up and decide we will play sports again full time, or start up the old garage band again, or whatever the dream might be. I can only imagine if most fans were given a similar opportunity they would jump all over it. To further that I like the idea that he keeps playing because that's probably what I would do. I'd keep playing a sport until it was physically impossible. As Rocky says when informed of the pursuit of happiness, "the point is I'm pursuing something and nobody looks to happy about it"

Who knows what will happen this season, maybe Favre's arm isn't strong enough and he doesn't even make it all the way through, or perhaps he has a rejuvenation and leads the Vikings to the Super Bowl, or maybe it's just an average season that ends in a very average way. However it ends, Favre will have gotten another chance to do what he loves to do and we should all be so lucky.

-Posted by Cadillac Mescallade

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You Can't Polish a Turd

Gussy it up any way you like Cardinal fans, you're team is still the Chicago St. Louis Phoenix Arizona Cardinals.

That said, at least you show some pride and turnout to support your team unlike the fine folks in the Twin Cities.

According to azcentral.com, via NJ.com, tickets for Sunday's NFC championship Game that went on sale yesterday and sold out in six minutes.



It sure beats mulleted Jared Allen "begging" fans to buy a ticket.

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Sports' Deepest Throats

Late last week, W. Mark Felt, better known as Watergate snitch "Deep Throat," died at the age of 95. Felt was responsible for Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's biggest leads in taking down President Nixon.

In his honor, and in honor of whistleblowers everywhere, we present sports' top ten historical snitches.

Dis-Honorable Mention

Brett Favre: Rumor has it he used his Packer-issued cell phone to call Vikes coach Brad Childress and offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell while on his way out of Green Bay. Of course, he denied any inappropriateness and Favre is a man to take at his word.

10. J.P. Hayes

You know you are a real rat when you can't even help but out yourself, even at the expense of your own livilhood.

Hayes inadvertently played a non-conforming golf ball - one not on the list approved for competition by the United States Golf Association - for one hole of a second-stage qualifier in McKinney, Texas.

The 43-year-old Appleton native disqualified himself from the second stage of the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament last week. The first DQ of his career was especially harsh because it left him ineligible to play fulltime on the PGA Tour in 2009.

9. Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea

Over the years we have seen Hulk Hogan's reputation, family life and ego more and more reflect the world of professional wrestling in which he made his bones. If not for the vison of Vincent K. McMahon, Hogan's career may very well have gone the way of, say, a Barry Horowitz.

In the 90's, years after Hollywood made his millions, he was the star witness against his boss, first scratching the All-American surface of the self-serving egomaniac that we know today:

In 1993, he was indicted after a steroid controversy engulfed the promotion. McMahon was put on trial in 1994, accused of distributing steroids to his wrestlers. As a legal move, his wife Linda was made CEO of the WWF during the trial. He was acquitted of all charges though he admitted to taking steroids himself in the 1980s. The prosecution made Hulk Hogan its star witness, and his testimony in the trial severely damaged the two's friendship, even though Hogan's testimony defended McMahon. After Hogan's testimony, McMahon went before the media declaring that he wished that Hogan had not lied about him on the witness stand.

8. Billy Wagner

Not a snitch, per se, but in the words of World Champion Pat Burrell, a "rat."

A club house cancer if there ever was one, Wagner, a perennial over-paid underachiever who crumbles in big moments, has never had any qualms calling out teammates in the media.

7. Paul LoDuca

Speaking of outspoken Mets hell-bent on destroying team chemistry...if not for Paul LoDuca, we'd have never known that New York's Latin ballplayers spoke a lick of English:

“I’ll do this, but you need to start talking to other players. It’s the same three or four people every day. Nobody else wants to talk...Some of these guys have got to start talking. They speak English, believe me.”

6. Kobe Bryant

Leave it to an adulterous, accused rapist to bring down those around him.

In his now-famous freestyle, Shaquille O'Neal explaned: "I'm a horse, Kobe ratted me out, that's why I'm getting divorced," in reference to Kobe's comment to Colorado police during his 2003 rape trial: "Shaq would pay his women not to say anything."

5. Anonymous 911 Caller

A woman police around 9:20 p.m. on Oct. 6 "to report some men had gotten out of a vehicle and urinated in her yard."

The caller told the dispatcher, "There was a big shuttle bus limousine that pulled up alongside of my house, and there was like seven black men who got out and stopped and peed all over my yard. There was like six or seven. There was a whole busload of them. But the bus driver stopped right alongside my house, and there was six or seven black men that got out, probably, I'd maybe say 19, 18, 19, maybe even 20."

The organizer, Viking Fred Smoot, put on quite a party for his Minnesota teammates.

Police described the Vikings sex boat incident as: "Masturbation, oral sex, woman on man, woman on woman, toys, middle of the floor, middle of the couches, middle of the room...Members of the entourage that were on both boats took enormously detailed photographs of a variety of sexual acts."

4. Jim Haslett

In 2005 the NFL player-turned coach outed one of the NFL's premier franchises (Steelers), coaches (Noll) and ownerships (Rooney) by saying that the "team's use of steroids during its Super Bowl championship seasons in the 1970s popularized the drug in the NFL."

Haslett later clarified: "It wasn't against the rules in those days, it wasn't illegal...I have a lot of respect for this league, but it's naive to think people weren't using enhancing drugs before they were illegal. The difference is that the NFL recognized that steroids would hurt the league and took steps to stop their use. That's what I was trying to show."

3. Brian McNamee

McNamee's ceremonious throwing of his former boss and baseball legend Roger Clemens under the bus in the heat of the Mitchell hearings was the ultimate sign of ungratefulness. Whether or not the Rocket was guilty of the accusations McNamee presented is besides the point. He ultimately betrayed his meal ticket and apparent friend and confidant, and continues to be a thorn in the would be Hall of Famer's side.

2. Jim Bouton

I wrote last year about Bouton's Ball Four, his "masterpiece that got his ass blacklisted from pro ball": Ball Four is a raw, unadulterated and no-holds barred piece written in a diary format by a witty, honest intellectual amongst his more physically focused contemporaries.

His references to player-team labor relations, "beaver shooting," amphetamine use and Mickey Mantle's skirt chasing were unprecedented at the time when sportswriters still held athletes on a pedestal for idol-worshiping fans to, well...worship.

1. Jose Canseco


What can be said about the Bash Brother-turned-reality star-turned author that hasn't already been said.

Bouton's book was viewed as getting him blacklisted, Canseco's was in essence a response to his perceived impression that he was already blacklisted. Consequently, it did little to help his cause. Bouton shed light on things we didn't know, Canseco's shed light on things we already assumed.

VOTE!



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Mewelde Moore Likes Sex Boats, Buffets

While Moore admitted that he was on the buffet line, he says he didn't see anything and that nothing happened.